Jobs report may guide taper timing, scale

10:33 PM,
Jan. 9, 2014

Janet Yellen asssumes chairmanship of the Federal Reserve on Feb. 1.

Written by

Adam Shell
Gannett

NEW YORK -- The monthly jobs report and the Federal Reserve will remain closely intertwined in 2014. The first look-see comes Friday when the December employment report is released.

For most of 2013, Wall Street closely monitored the government's monthly report on how many jobs were created to handicap when and if the Fed would begin to dial back, or "taper," its bond-buying program, known as quantitative easing.

But the Fed answered the basic question of taper "timing" at their mid-December meeting when they said that they would start trimming their monthly asset purchases by $10 billion ...